Flying Geese Paradigm

The Flying Geese Paradigm is a view of Japanese scholars upon the technological development in Southeast Asia viewing Japan as a leading power. It was developed in the 1930s, but gained wider popularity in the 1960s after its author Kaname Akamatsu published his ideas in the Journal of Developing economies.

Background of the Flying Geese Paradigm

The image of geese flying in unison – "Gankou keitai" in Japanese – has been used in both Chinese and Japanese classical literature as a symbol of heroism and collective action within a nation-state. These Confucian virtues and others could be deducted from various qualities of the flight such as the geometry of the formation or the desire to return home (Terry 2002, 54). Presumably because of the powerful symbolism the flying geese have come to serve Japanese economists and others as a metaphor for several different phenomena over the past century (Ozawa 2005, 9-10). The scholar most closely associated with "flying geese” theory is Kaname Akamatsu. He has in fact developed three distinct models named after the migrating birds:
* His first flying geese pattern concerns the process of moving from import, via production for domestic consumption, to production for export(Ozawa 2005, 9).
* The second theory describes industry-cycle sequencing on the basis of shifting comparative advantages (Kasahara 2004, 8).
* The third theory was published in 1961's ground-breaking 'A Theory of Unbalanced Growth in the World Economy' where he describes what he calls “the alignment of nations along the different stages of development”(Ozawa 2005, 10).

These three models can be seen as distinct entities or as mutually dependent parts of a larger framework dealing with industrial development over time in developing nations, especially East Asia; the first two taking place within a nation and the third theory dealing with the larger regional issue of industrial development.

The link between the theories and the name “Flying Geese” lies in the pattern of sequential curves that appear when making a graph of – for instance – import, production for internal consumption and production for export over time.

In the 1930s and during World War II Akamatsu worked for the Japanese army with the task of planning the post-war (or to be more precise: post-Japanese victory) economic order in Asia. This work produced a part of the foundation for the theories he put forward in the 1960’s. The Flying Geese Paradigm has therefore not only the characteristics of a descriptive model but also of a normative design (Terry 2002, 63-67). The theory, its originator and those who developed it further must be seen in the context of their relationships with the state bureaucracy and its role as a tool to help Asia achieve its unprecedented levels of sustained growth in the second half of the 20th century. The conclusions drawn from the paradigm can also be said to be important for understanding Japanese post-war policies towards its neighboring states, especially Japanese aid policy and state-directed Foreign Direct Investment (Terry 2002, 67-85).

Akamatsu’s third Flying Geese Paradigm

Akamatsu’s third Flying Geese Paradigm is a model for international division of labor in East Asia based on dynamic comparative advantage. The paradigm postulated that Asian nations will catch up with the West as a part of a regional hierarchy where the production of commoditized goods would continuously move from the more advanced countries to the less advanced ones. The underdeveloped nations in the region could be considered to be “aligned successively behind the advanced industrial nations in the order of their different stages of growth in a wild-geese-flying pattern” (Ozawa 2005, 9). The lead goose in this pattern is Japan itself, the second-tier of nations consisted of the New Industrializing Economies (South Korea, Republic of China, Singapore and Hong Kong). After these two groups come the main ASEAN countries: Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Finally the least developed major nations in the region: China, Vietnam etc. make up the rear guard in the formation (Kasahara 2004, 2-13).

The main driver in the model is the “leader’s imperative for internal restructuring” (Kasahara 2004, 10) due to increasing labor costs. As the comparative advantages (on a global scale) of the ‘lead goose’ causes it to shift further and further away from labor-intensive production to more capital-intensive activities it sheds its low-productivity production to nations further down in the hierarchy in a pattern that then reproduces itself between the countries in the lower tiers. The impulse for development always comes from the top tier causing many to label the FGP a top-down model (Kasahara 2004, 9-10). The FGP has proved to be a useful tool when describing the regional production patterns in East Asia as industries such as the textile industry has left not only Japan – the most advanced East Asian nation – but also, at a later point, South Korea and, Taiwan etc. These second tier nations have now firmly established themselves in for instance the automotive industry and are now beginning to shift to the even more advanced production of microcomputers and the like.

The vehicle for technology transfer is where Akamatsu’s framework is least developed. He does however suggest that the demonstration effect of international trade plays an important part as well as the “animal spirit of the entrepreneurs” in developing countries. More recently, modified versions of the FGP – such as the one presented in Ozawa (1995) – stress the importance of transnational firms in this area (Kasahara 2004, 12).

Regarding the internal order of nations within the model, Akamatsu did not consider the relative positions to be permanently fixed but could rather be seen as inherently unstable. This idea is most likely connected to the memories of the Japanese development in the late 19th century when it catapulted itself from a technological backwater to a mature industrial powerhouse. Other scholars however, have emphasized the stability and harmony of the clustered growth envisaged in the FGP implying it would be for a nation difficult to shift from one tier to another (Kasahara 2004, 12-13).

References

# Akamatsu K.(1962): A historical pattern of economic growth in developing countries. Journal of Developing Economies, 1(1):3-25, March-August.
# Kasahara S. (2004): The Flying Geese Paradigm: A Critical study of Its Application to East Asian Regional Development, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Discussion Paper # 169, April.
# Ozawa, T. (2005): Institutions, Industrial Upgrading, and Economic Performance in Japan – The ‘Flying-Geese Paradigm of Catch-up Growth. Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing.
# Terry, E. (2002): How Asia got Rich –Japan, China, and the Asian Miracle. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp Publishing.